Coming to Terms
by KilroyWasHere
Summary: On the evening following her trial, Mimi comtemplates her fate as her family struggles to accept her impending death. Set during Masquerade.


**Melissa de la Cruz owns everything.**

**This is a ****one-shot during**_**Masquerade**_**set ****the evening after the Committee condemns Mimi to death. Just a short insight into Mimi's thoughts and thoughts of her family following the trial. **

They don't understand. She can see it in their eyes, hear it in the words they don't say, feel it in the gentle touches on her arm and in her hair, the lips that brush her cheek. They don't understand. They can't understand why she is so calm. Her father is attentive, catering to her every need and desire, paying attention to her in ways he's never done for over sixteen years. Her mother is even worse, fluttering around her daughter like a Dior-bedecked moth, constantly stroking her hair, squeezing her shoulders, talking to her in a hurried voice so that words rush past her like so many cars on a freeway.

_His_ devastation, however, is heartening to witness. After so many months of uncertainty and doubt, it's nice to see that he actually does care, no matter how platonic it may or may not be. Although she wishes her heart didn't break every time she looked into his red-rimmed green eyes, every time she ran her fingers down his tear-stained cheek. He attached himself to her as soon as he arrived home and he hasn't released her since, strong arms holding her through the blanket she wrapped around her slim form in a futile attempt to chase away the coldness in her soul.

They sit like that for hours, clinging to each other, foreheads pressed together even as their minds stay silent. There is, after all, nothing to say that they didn't already know. Finally, their mother wanders in and looks at her children, feeling an unexpected upwelling of emotion and affection for her twins as she watches them huddle together on the couch. "Dinner's ready." She says in a hoarse voice that does not belong to her before hurrying away once more.

They exchange glances, and then she rises without saying a word, discarding the blanket behind her like a bride on her wedding night and walks out of the room with supreme grace and poise. He scrambles up with not nearly so much dignity and trails after her, clasping her hand in his own and wondering at the chill he feels in her fingers.

They sit stiffly, like four wooden puppets, picking without energy at gourmet food they didn't even need to eat. The silence is deafening, oppressive, pressing down on her until she feels like she could scream. It builds inside her, an uncontrolled beast, until she can't contain it anymore and it bursts out of her in peals of melodious laughter.

Someone drops a fork, someone else sets down a glass with an audible 'clank', and they all turn and stare at her as if she's gone mad. Her father, his face drawn and gaunt with worry and too much stress, watching her with apprehension and consternation. Her mother, her careful mask collapsing for just a moment to reveal an expression of worry and just a hint of fear. And him, her brother, her twin, her other half, her mate, her…husband, watches her with unmasked horror and longing, simultaneously repulsed by her callousness and filled with a burning desire to hold her and shelter her and protect her from all the world's evils. He always was a stereotypical male.

With a calmness she does not feel she gets up and wanders away from the table as tears slide down her brother's cheeks and her mother begins to sob, ignoring the voices that demand an explanation, demand she return, demand to know if she's alright, demand, demand, demand. And she just wanders away from it all, an Ice Princess abandoning her loyal subjects to confusion and despair.

She floats upstairs, leaving their noise and their madness and their grief behind her. She stops in front of the bathroom door, staring at her reflection in an ornately gilded mirror. They can't understand how she can be so calm about her impending doom, her obliteration from this world. They can't understand how the news doesn't send her to the floor wailing with grief. Why her death doesn't frighten her. Her deep green eyes searched her face, and she startles even herself with how calm she appears. Of course she is calm. She looks Death in the face every day.

**As anyone who reads my Blue Bloods fanfiction knows, the character of Mimi Force is a source of endless fascination for me. I love her role as the Angel of Death, because I think it fits so perfectly for her personality and adds such depth to her character. That being said, this was my attempt to analyze how Mimi might feel as she adjusts to the news of her impending death, and her family's total inability to understand her reaction. **

**I wrote this ****fic**** in hopes of jump-starting my Blue Bloods muse in hopes of finishing (or even just continuing) my longer story, Redefinitions. Let's hope it works, and I hope this tides my kind, wonderful, amazing, faithful readers who are endlessly patient as I slog my way through my writer's block. **

**Also, if anyone knows how I can get this story added to the Blue Bloods Community, please let me know. I'm sure it's amazingly simple, but I am technologically stupid. Thanks for reading! **


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